Business Continuity Planning

Remote Data Storage can help solve your Business Continuity planning problems. Our trained staff can show you how.

Below are some things that you need to start thinking about to develop your plan.


About Business Continuity Planning

Business disruptions occur for a variety of reasons - some foreseeable and some unforeseen. While the likelihood of any individual event may be small, the business impact of disruptions can be immense. To survive, you must protect your business against crises - not simply by taking out property and casualty insurance on capital items and human resources, but by preparing comprehensive business continuity plans (BCPs) that ensure business operations are resilient, the impact on customer service is minimized, financial losses are reduced and regulatory compliance is maintained.

The biggest risks cannot be covered by insurance policies alone. Customer loyalty, business reputation and public trust must be protected by an effective and actionable BCP that prepares for possible events and mitigates the unlikely. Changing business circumstances and processes as well as new threat scenarios can mean that BCPs must also be frequently revisited and updated. Business continuity planning is about maintaining, resuming and recovering business operations - not just the recovery of the information system. The planning process should include: risk and business impact analysis; risk management and crisis response action plans; monitoring and testing of operations, regulatory compliance and recovery plans; awareness planning; and periodic reviews and revisions.

There are 10 critical elements of a BCP specified in NASD Rule 3510. Each company need only address the elements applicable to its business, but if you do not include a specified element in your company's plan, your plan must document why it is not included.
Critical elements to consider as part of your plan:

1. Data backup and recovery (hard copy and electronic)
   
2. All mission critical systems
   
3. Financial and operational assessments
   
4. Alternate communications between customers and your business
   
5. Alternate communications between your business and its employees
   
6. Alternate physical location of employees
   
7. Critical business constituents, banks, board members, etc.
   
8. Reporting
   
9. Communications with others
   
10. How the business will assure customers' prompt access to their products and information in the event that the business determines that it is unable to continue.